“Well enough!” But his voice did not lose that heat. “Perhaps he acted as any man. Save, that from your brother one does not expect the act of any man. And—” he hesitated as if he chewed upon some words he did not want to say yet there was that forcing him to the saying, “Lady, do not expect— Oh, what matter it. I may be seeing drawn swords where all are sheathed. What say you to food?”
I wanted to know what chafed in his mind, but I would not force it from him. And hunger was greater than all now. Eagerly I reached for a spitted bird, blew upon it and my fingers as I strove to strip the browned flesh from its small bones.
So long had I slept that it was dawn about us when we finished that meal. Jervon brought up the single horse. So Elyn had taken the other! That had not occurred to me. My brother's behavior seemed more strange as I thought on it.
I did not gainsay Jervon when he insisted that I ride. But I made up my mind that I would not spend the whole of this journey in the saddle; like true comrades, we would share alike.
However, as we went, my thoughts were well occupied with Elyn. Not just that he had left us so— any man newly out of a spell might well be so overcast in his mind to hold only to one desire and the need for obtaining it. If Brunissende meant so much to him, he might see in her the safety he craved. No, I could not count his leaving as unfeeling, for I had never been in the grip of a spell.
It was Elyn the boy I began to remember, recalling all I had once accepted without question. Though why I had this overshadowing feeling that I was about to face another testing I could not tell. Save that no one who had Wise Learning ever puts aside such uneasiness as without cause.
Elyn had never shown any interest in the Wise Way. In fact, now that I faced memories squarely and sounded them for full meaning, he had shunned that. Though I had had laid on me the vows of silence in many things, there had been lesser bits of learning he might well have profited by. Also he had not liked it when I had shown my arts in his presence.
Oddly enough he had not resented the fact that I shared his swordplay. He had treated me then more as a brother, and I had been content. But let me speak of what I might do with Aufrica and he had shied away. Yet at that last meeting he had allowed the cup pledge. The first time, to my knowledge, that he had ever agreed to any spell binding.
We both knew our mother's story, that she had sought out powers which might prove fatal in order to give our father a son. She had forged the dragon cup—but at the last moment she had asked for a daughter also, gladly paying with her life.
So we had not been conceived as ordinary children; magic had played a part in our lives from the beginning. Did Elyn fear because of this?
Though I had been much with him and my father, yet I had had those other hours of which my father never spoke. He, too, as I recalled those years now, had seemed to ignore that side of my life. As if it were something—like—like a deformity!
I drew a deep breath, a whole new conception of my past opening before me. Had my father and Elyn felt aversion—even shame—But how could they? There was my mother— What had happened in that land of Estcarp across the sea which had rift my parents from their former life, tossed them into barren Wark?
Shame of the power? Did my father, my brother, look upon me as one marked—or tainted—?
“No!” I denied that aloud.
“No what, my lady?”
Startled, I looked at Jervon walking beside me. I hesitated then. There was a question I longed to ask, yet shrank from the asking. Then I nerved myself to it, for by the reply I might perhaps find some solution to the problem of Elyn.
“Jervon, do you know what I am?” I asked it baldly, my voice perhaps a little hoarse as I braced myself for his answer.
“A very gallant lady—and a mistress of powers,” he replied.
“Yes, a Wise Woman.” I would not have flattery from him. “One who deals with the unseen.”
“To some good purpose, as you have here. What troubles you, Lady?”
“I do not believe that all men think as you do, comrade. That there is good in being a mistress of powers. Or if they admit so much at times, they are not always so charitable. I was bred up to such knowledge, to me it is life. I cannot imagine being without—though it walls me from others. There are those who always look askance at me.”
“Including Elyn?”
He was quick, too quick. Or perhaps I was stupid enough to give away my thoughts. But since I had gone this far, why try to conceal my misgivings farther?
“Perhaps—I do not know.”
Had I hoped he would deny that? If so, I was disappointed, for after a moment his reply came:
“If that is the way with him, it could explain much. And having been caught in what he distrusted—yes, he could wish to see the last of all which would remind him—”
I reined in the horse. “But it is not so with you?”
Jervon put his hand to sword hilt. “This is my defense, my weapon. It is steel and I can touch it, all men can see it in my hand. But there are other weapons, as you have so ably proved. Should I fear, or look sidewise (as you say) upon them because they are not metal, or perhaps not visible? Learning in the arts of war I have, and also, once, some in the ways of peace. That came to me by study. You have yours by study also. I may not understand it, but perhaps there is that in my learning also which would be strange to you. Why should one learning be less or more than any other when they are from different sources? You have healcraft which is your peace art, and what you have done to lay this Curse is your art of war.
“No, I do not look with fear—or aversion—on what you do.”
So did he answer the darkest of my thoughts.
But if I must accept that Elyn felt differently, what lay in days ahead? I could return to that nameless dale—unless early winter sealed it off—where the Wark folk stayed. There was nothing to tie me to them save Aufrica. Yet I had known when I rode forth that her farewell to me had been lasting. There was no need for two Wise Women there, and she had done her best for me. I was now a woman grown and proven in power. The hatched fledgling cannot be refitted into the eggshell from which it has broken free.
Coomb Frome? No, I had nothing there either. I was sure I had read Brunissende right in the short time I had seen her. She might accept her Dame, but a Wise Woman close kin to her lord—there would be more sidewise looks.
But if I went not to the Dale nor to the Keep, where would I venture? Now I looked about me wonderingly, for it seemed, in that moment of realization, I was indeed cast adrift and even the land around me took on a more forbidding cast.
“Do we go on?” Once more Jervon spoke as if he could read my unhappy thoughts.
“Where else is there to go?” For the first time in our companying I looked to him for an answer, having none myself.
“I would say not the Keep!” The decision in that was sharp and clear. “Or, if you wish, only to make sure of Elyn's return, to visit only and let that visit be brief.”
I seized upon that—it would give me breathing space, a time to think—to plan.
“To Coomb Frome then—in brief.”
Though we perforce went slowly, by midafternoon we were sighted by those Elyn had sent to meet us. So I came a second time to the Keep. I noted also that, though we were treated with deference by that party, yet Elyn had not ridden with them.
We reached the Keep long after moonrise and I was shown into a guest chamber where serving maids waited with a steaming copper of water to ease the aches of travel, a bed such as I had never known for softness. But I had slept far better the night before on the bare ground in the wilderness, for my thoughts pricked and pulled at me.
In the morn I arose and the maids brought me a soft robe such as the Dale ladies wore. But I asked for my mailed shirt and travel clothes. They were then in a fluster so I learned that by my Lady Brunissende's own orders those clothes had been destroyed as too travel-worn.
Under my urging one of the maids bethought her
self of other clothing and brought it to me. Man's it was but new. Whether it had been for my brother, I knew not. But I wore it together with boots, my mail, and the sword belt and sheath in which rested the mutilated weapon which had routed the Curse.
I left my cloak, my saddlebags, and journey wallet in my room. My brother, they told me, was still with his lady—and I sent to ask for a meeting.
So I went for the second time into that fated tower room. Brunissende saw me first and she gasped, put out her hand to grasp tight Elyn's silken sleeve. For he wore no armor.
He gazed at me with a growing frown. Then he took her hand gently from his arm to stride towards me, his frown heavy as he looked me up and down.
“Why come you here in such guise, Elys? Can you not understand that to see you so is difficult for Brunissende?”
“To see me so? I have been so all my life, brother. Or have you forgotten—?”
“I have forgotten nothing!” he burst out, and it was as if he were deliberately feeding his anger, if anger it was, that he might brace himself to harsh words. “What was done in Wark is long past. You have to forget those rough ways. My dear lady will aid you to do so.”
“Will she now? And I have much to forget, do I, brother? It would seem you have already forgotten!”
His hand came up; I think he was almost moved to strike me. And I realized that he feared most of ail—not me as a Wise Woman, but that I might make plain to Brunissende the manner of his ensorcelment.
“It is forgotten—” He said those words as a warning.
“So be it.” I had had no decision to make after all. It had been made for me, days, seasons—long ago. We might be of one birth, of one face, but we were otherwise hardly kin. “I ask nothing of you, Elyn, save a horse. Since I do not propose to travel afoot—and that I think you owe me.”
His frown cleared a little. “Where do you go? Back to those of Wark?”
I shrugged but did not answer. If he wished to believe that, let him. I was still amazed at the chasm between us.
“You are wise.” Brunissende had crept to his side. “Men hereabouts still fear the Curse. That you have had dealings with that power seems fearsome to them.”
Elyn stirred. “She broke it for me. Never forget that, my lady.”
She answered nothing to that, only eyed me in such a way as I knew there could be no friendship between us.
“The day grows, I will ride.” I had no desire to prolong this viewing of something already buried in the past.
He gave me the best mount in his stable, ordered ort also a pack horse and had it loaded with gear. I did not deny him this attempt to salve his conscience. All the time I saw the looks of his men who, seeing us so like together, must have longed for the mystery to be explained.
After I had mounted I looked down at him. I did not want to wish him ill. He lived by his nature, I mine. Instead I made a sign to summon fortune and blessing to him. And saw his mouth tighten as if he wanted it not.
So I rode from Coomb Frome, but at the gate another joined me. And I said:
“Have you learned where your lord now lies? Which way do you ride to return to his standard?”
“He is dead. The men of his following—those still living—enlisted under other banners. I am without a lord.”
“Then where do you go, swordsman?”
“I am without a lord, but I have found a lady. Your road is mine, mistress of powers.”
“Well enough. But which road and where?”
“There is still a war, Lady. I have my sword and you yours. Let us seek where we can best harry the Hounds!”
I laughed. I had turned my back on Coomb Frome. I was free—for the first time I was free—of Aufrica's governing, of the wretched survivors of Wark, of the spell of the dragon cup, which henceforth would be only a cup and not any lodestone to draw me into danger. Unless—I glanced at Jervon, but he was not looking at me, but eagerly at the road ahead—unless, I chose to make it otherwise. Which at some future day I might just do.
DREAM SMITH
THERE ARE MANY TALES which the song-smiths beat out in burnished telling, some old and some new. And the truth of this one or that—who knows? Yet at the heart of the most improbable tale may lie a kernel of truth. So it was with the tale of the Dream Smith—though for any man now living to prove it-he might as well try to empty Fos Tern with a kitchen ladle!
Broson was smith in Ghyll, having both the greater and the smaller mysteries of that craft. Which is to say that he wrought in bronze and iron and also in precious metals. Though the times he could use tools on the latter were few and far between.
He had two sons, Arnar and Collard. Both were, in boyhood, deemed likely youths, so that Broson was looked upon, not only in Ghyll (which lies at river-fork in Ithondale), but as far off as Sym and Boldre, as a man well fortuned. Twice a year he traveled by river to Twyford with small wear of his own making, wrought hinges and sword blades, and sometimes brooches and necklets of hill silver.
This was in the days before the invaders came and High Hallack was at peace, save with outlaws, woods-runners, and the like, who raided now and then from the wastes. Thus it was needful that men in the upper dales have weapons to hand.
Vescys was lord in Ithondale. But the Dalesmen saw little of him since he heired, through his mother, holdings in the shorelands and there married a wife with more. So only a handful of elderly men and a wash-wife or two were at the Keep and much of it was closed from winter's midfeast to the next.
It was in the third year after Vescys’ second marriage (the Dalesmen having that proclaimed to them by a messenger) that something of more import to Ghyll itself occurred.
A trader came down from the hills, one of his ponies heavily laden with lumps of what seemed pure metal, yet none Broson could lay name to. It had a sheen, even unworked, which fascinated the smith. And, having tried a small portion by fire and hammer, he enthusiastically bargained for the whole of the load. Though the peddler was evasive when asked to name the source, Broson decided that the man was trying to keep secret something which might well bring him profit again. Since the pony was lame, the man consented with visible (or so it appeared) reluctance to sell, leaving in one of Broson's metal bins two sacks of what was more melted scrap than ore.
Broson did not try to work it at once. Rather he spent time studying, thinking out how best he might use it. His final decision was to try first a sword. It was rumored that Lord Vescys might visit this most western of his holdings, and to present his lord with such an example of smith work could only lead to future favor.
The smelting Broson gave over to Collard, since the boy was well able to handle such a matter. He had determined that each of his sons in turn would learn to work with this stuff, always supposing that the peddler would return, as Broson was sure he would, with a second load.
And in that he gave his son death-in-life, even as he had once given him life.
For, though no man could ever learn what had gone wrong in the doing, for all those standing by, including Broson himself, had detected no carelessness on Collard's part (he was known to be steady and painstaking), there was an explosion which nigh burst the smithy to bits.
There were burns and hurts, but Collard had taken the worst of both. It would have been better had he died in that moment. For when he dragged back into half-life after weary months of torment and despair, he was no longer a man.
Sharvana, Wise Woman and healer, took the broken body into her keeping. What crawled out of her house was no Collard, a straight, upstanding son for any man to eye with pride, but a thing such as you see sometimes carved (luckily much weathered away) on the ruins left by the Old Ones.
Not only was his body so twisted that he walked bent over like a man on whom hundreds of seasons weighed, but his face was a mask such as might leer at the night from between trees of a haunted forest. Sharvana had an answer to that, but it was not enough to shield him entirely from the eyes of his fellows—though all were quick t
o avert their gaze when he shambled by.
She took supple bark and made a mask to hide his riven face. And that he wore at all times. But still he kept well out of the sight of all.
Nor did he return to his father's house, but rather took an old hut at the foot of the garden. This he worked upon at night, never coming forth by day lest his old comrades might sight him. And he rebuilt it into a snug enough shelter. For, while the accident seemed to have blasted all else, it had not destroyed his clever hands, nor the mind behind the ruined face.
He would work at the forge at night, but at last Broson said no to that. For there was objection to the sound of hammers, and the people of Ghyll wanted no reminding of who used them. So Collard came no more to the smithy.
What he did no man knew, and he came to be almost forgotten. The next summer, when his brother married Nicala of the Mill, he never appeared at the wedding, nor ventured out in those parts of the yard and garden where those of the household might see him.
It was in the third year after his accident that Collard did come forward, and only because another peddler came into the forge. While the trader was dickering with Broson, Collard stood in the shadows. But when the bargain for a set of belt knives was settled, the smith's son lurched forward to touch the trader's arm.
He did not speak, but motioned to a side table whereon he had spread out a square of cloth and set up a series of small figures. They were fantastical in form, some animals, some men, but such men as might be heroes from the old tales, so perfect were their bodies. As if poor Collard, doomed to go crooked for as long as he lived, had put into these all his longing to be one with his fellows.
Some were of wood, but the greater number of metal. Broson, astounded at viewing such, noted the sheen of the metal. It was the strange stuff he had thrown aside, fearing to handle again after the accident.
The trader saw their value at once and made an offer. But Collard, with harsh croaks of voice, brought about what even Broson thought a fair bargain.